Coming to inversions

I have found somewhere with wi-fi and a plug and I am going to attempt to update my blog with PICTURES, hooray, before I have to dash off to buy yet another aubergine before I meet my friend for lunch, you see the glamour of my life. Firstly, however, there is a deeply unfortunate development I'm afraid I have to tell you about.

I have changed jobs, and I now have a job where I am supposed to roll up reasonably on time looking professional and say things like 'and have we factored that in to the project plan'. What actually happens is that I roll up looking just on the relatively acceptable edge of bizarre and fight over the coffee in the machine AND WIN (memo to self, try to cut down). I am not helped, however, by some particularly vocal harrassment I encounter along my route. And I can't avoid it! There's no other way! That's the way I have to go past!

Why hello

This is Bad Stripy Cat. This cat strides out and shouts at me when I pass him. Sometimes he shouts at me when I am 10 metres away and because I am an idiot I shout back. 'Mrrrrrrrrrooooooow! Mrooooooooowwwww!' he shouts, furiously, and I call out, hello kittycat what's going on with you today and then we have a conversation.

Me: What on earth is it, puss cat?

Cat: Mmmmmrrrrrrrooooww! (Furiously)

Me: Are you alright? What's going on?

Cat: Mrow mrow mrow mrow MMMMMRRROOOWWW!

Me, sympathetically: Poor Pusscat! Did they really?

Cat: Mrow!

Me: I've got to go to work now. I'll see you later.

Cat: MMMMMMMMrrrrrrrrrroooooooooowwww.

Me: Don't make me feel guilty. I've got a busy day. I've got to go!

Cat: Mrow. (sulkily)

Sometimes passers by join in. That is how loud this cat is. I mean, I am not easily embarrassed, but the whole situation is just very difficult. Because I am an utter sucker, and it now happens to me so often that cats just stride out and shout at me as I am passing innocently, I perform a brief health check while I am stroking them in case they are unhappy. I have a white pussycat friend on another road who I think is too thin, and once I flagged down his neighbour (no, really, I did) and quizzed her about the cat's medical history so I could judge if I needed to put the cat in my bag and rescue it or not. She was a very middle-class lady with fuschia lipstick. The cat is fine. It is old and has a longstanding medical condition for which it is under the care of a vet. Bad Stripy Cat, however, was fat, warm and sleek. I do not know what he is trying to tell me. I do not know.

Quilt of boringness

This is my quilt I am making. It is the Quilt Of No Brain. It is 6.5 inch squares joined together and I am going to add a pink border and then I am going to wrestle with batting and swear. I have so many quilts and blankets on my bed at the moment that one day I will probably be discovered smothered under them and then who will Bad Stripy Cat have to shout at in the mornings, hey?

And finally I wish to report an utter triumph. This is the move I am working towards on pole at the moment (picture from this book – this is an expensive but helpful book).

Imagine me with gritted teeth shouting 'no it's ok, I think I'm locked on'

Actually, I can do this move, I just do it in a ratty tshirt rather than a bikini and I have a tortured expression and someone has to hold my head so I don't drop on my neck and break it, which would be unideal. However, this is the move I NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO BEFORE I CAN MOVE TO THE ADVANCED CLASS:

I don't even know why this pig is so hard. I think I approach it in a limp-wristed feeble manner

Readers, it has been agonising and I am not there yet. Every week I whimper at the mention of inversions. It has not even been that I am nearly there, I am just so completely wrong that I thought I would have to give up and get another hobby which did not involve chalking my inner thighs. However, last night I nearly managed it – I touched my legs above my head on the pole and I think I have got the right action. So I feel there will be inversions in my future. Inversions! I am going to open the biggest bottle of champagne you have ever seen when I have managed it. I am chuffed with myself. It has taken some perseverance. Again I muse on why I chose such a difficult sport but there we go. Perhaps it chose me?